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There have been many different proposals for the way in which society should be organised:-

Dictatorship - monarch or military leader;

Oligarchy - small group of self appointed leaders;

Democracy - governing institutions accountable to citizens.

By and large, philosophers (with notable exceptions such as Plato) have opted for democracy as the best way to regulate society but there is not necessarily a link between any system and justice and fairness although democracies, in their different ways, tend to be fairer than dictatorships.

The supposed arrangements by which a government achieves a level of justice and fairness varies greatly:

Contract - beginning with Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) there is a long tradition of social contract theory proposed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-88), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and John Stuart Mill (1806-73); the most recent and powerful version is John Rawls' determination of principles of justice through the "veil of ignorance". Contract theory says how a perfectly just set of institutions can be derived to ensure the equal enjoyment of such primary goods as liberty;

Outcome - a practical approach not based on an ideal theory but on what actually happens to people; the most recent and powerful version of this is Amartya Sen's (born 1933) use of the measurement of capability, as opposed to basic theoretical equality as in 'Rawls;

Utilitarianism - most clearly articulated by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), this measures a particular kind of outcome, the degree of aggregate enjoyment - the greatest happiness of the greatest number - by a society as the result of a policy;

Marxism - which, theoretically, posits the notion of equality of outcome, as opposed to equality of opportunity in Rawls.

Most democratic theories of justice are not purely any of these but are hybrids.

These brief remarks lead us to the inevitable question:-

If it is our objective to establish a just and fair society, what does this mean?

In this context a just society for us is one in which the theoretical entitlements of citizens are equal, i.e. equality before the law; free speech etc; but theoretical parity of "primary social goods" like liberty does not mean parity of prospects of the enjoyment of rights.

In the United Kingdom politics is largely bipolar, with conservatives giving liberty a priority over equality and progressives prioritising equality over liberty.

We will assume for our discussion that our society is, by and large, just and that the immediate problem that faces us is how to define fairness.

We are naturally disposed to "positional" or "prudential" factors in arriving at an idea of fairness, i.e. parents are naturally inclined to seek educational arrangements which benefit their children; and richer people tend to favour a higher level of privately disposed prudential income; whereas poorer people tend to favour the curtailment of private prudential expenditure in favour of state provision.

How do we establish a fair balance between private prudential and public expenditure?

The USA favours a model which allocates less than 25% of GDP to the public sector whereas EU countries, including the UK, hover around 40%. Are there any objective ways of deciding whether either figure is too high or too low?

As modern societies make opting out almost impossible, to what extent do we have obligations to secure equal citizen capability, i.e. for women, ethnic minorities, disabled people?

Is it fair to define "neighbour" as people of whose existence you are aware? How does this affect your view of fairness?

Most economists measure how well we are doing according to material income and wealth. Is this good enough?

Is there a requirement in a Christian theory of fairness for sacrifice?